Saturday, February 28, 2015
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Mia Catherine advice to Aspiring Writers.
Mia Catherine advice to Aspiring Writers.
As I stand at the threshold of a new career, I look back at the strange and unplanned path I've taken to be here. Publication wasn't my goal when I began writing stories. I wrote for fun, for friendship, and to escape the daily grind. Somewhere along the way, my writing changed, and my goals grew.
Now that I've signed that first professional contract, I realize I have a similar history to other writers on the path, each step with its important lessons. Although I may have taken them out of order, each helped me to get to this point in my new career. Had I known the value of these steps a few years ago, perhaps I could have gotten here sooner. It was just the first thing I didn't know in a long list of things I didn't know.
That said, there are a few key experiences that propelled me into this crazy world of publishing.
1. Writers groups. I began writing amateur stories with a group of women with similar interests. Posting one chapter at a time helped because it gave me immediate feedback - what worked, what didn't work. The speculation of where the story would go helped me form the suspense. I've heard others call them writer's groups or critique groups. I guess this was my version of that.
2. A Beta Reader (editor) I made contact with an author whose work I truly admired. She is now one of my dearest friends and has helped my writing immensely. She is my perfect compliment, her strengths are my weaknesses, and vice versa. She is brutally honest with her reviews of my work, but at the same time is unwaveringly supportive. She's the reason I'm here.
3. Literary Contests. Contests can be a wonderful way to get feedback on your manuscripts. Professionals, many who have the power to get your story published, judge these contests, and the entry fees are very reasonable. For $20-$30, you can have a number of pages critiqued for valuable feedback. Initially, my reason for entering that first contest was to support the above mentioned friend, but I was confident with my submission. I thought it was pretty good. Well, I didn't know what I didn't know. My entry was eviscerated-and rightly so. I've since learned the errors I was making are common; head hopping, over use of adverbs, too many words. Of course, I disagreed, until I entered the second contest-and received the same results.
4. Have confidence. Although I received some negative input, I also received a number of compliments-the biggest of which was that I had a nice voice. To hear praise from professionals gave me a wonderful boost of confidence, and motivated me to improve. I didn't get discouraged by the criticism, but chose to focus on the positive and use the critique to work on the things I needed to.
5. Classes. I took an online class. It was the best $16 I've ever spent in my life. I remember learning about point of view in English class during my primary school days (I won't mention how long ago that was), but it's not something I applied in my story. I went from one character's POV to the other in every paragraph, and I saw nothing wrong with that. I even argued, politely of course, with the teacher how I couldn't possibly change things. Wow, how wrong I was.
6. Became a book reviewer. Upon the recommendation of a teacher, I signed up to review books of other authors. Not only did it allow me to read to my heart's content for free, it's a fabulous way to learn more about the industry. I learned what I liked, what I didn't, and exposed me to genres I may not have otherwise read. It also helped me understand why my weaknesses, such as point of view, are so important. (and, yes, I even sent a note of apology to that teacher, thanking her for all I learned)
7. Practice, practice, practice. I revised and revised, and then entered two more contests. This time, the reaction was far different. Finishing at the top is much preferred to the bottom, but without those initial harsh critiques, I never would have done the work to improve. One judge was an associate editor and requested my full manuscript, and that eventually led to my breakthrough.
Everyone's experience is certainly different, but the steps I took to this point are similar to many, many others. Now, I look forward to the editing and release process. I'm still learning about the business side of publishing, and there is a lot to learn. I guess it's just more I don't know, but this time I know I don't know...
Born and raised in Wisconsin, Mia Catherine is a proud Cheesehead living with her husband and their three young sons. An avid fan of television dramas, Mia looked away from the small screen when she became disillusioned with the lack of substance on current shows. Enjoying the fantasy involved in a good love story, she turned to reading, and quickly discovered a little voice in her head. That voice led to writing her first chapter, and the second, and the third…Now, translating that voice in her head to words on the computer is Mia’s escape when times are hard. As words begin to form a story, she’s allowed to escape the trials of everyday life and live in her own little world, if for only a short time.
Knowing others find some pleasure reading what she’s written is just an added bonus.
http://miacatherine.net/
Originally posted at ARW April 18, 2013
http://aspiringromancewriters.webs.com/apps/blog/show/25751724-mia-catherine-advice-to-aspiring-writers-
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
“How to bring action alive in a book?" by J.S. Frankel
Please welcome YA Author J.S. Frankel to ARW
“How to bring action alive in a book?" This is a great question, and one that I’ve thought much of. In any novel, there has to be conflict. Whether it’s emotional, physical or both, it doesn’t really matter. It has to be shown. In my opinion, it is far better to show the physical side of things (and admittedly it’s a lot easier in my case) but, as with all things, I’m still in the process of working it out.
Step one for me is the build-up, and that means trash talk after the conflict has been set up and the hero or heroine has been given a reason to fight. Trash talk doesn’t involve swearing per se, for I feel that swearing tends to detract from the main action that will ensue. I write primarily Young Adult, so I like to keep any cursing to a minimum if not downright eliminate it. As an example of a little trash talk, in my gender-switch novel, Twisted, I had the character of Angella confront the evil king as her girlfriend, Sharon, lies on the bed bound and helpless. Angella casts off her disguise and the king roars, “This is the best trick, yet. You amuse me, woman!” Angella then answers, “Fun’s not over yet, king.”
And while it’s just two lines, it gets the reader’s imagination going, gets them in the mood, so to speak, and the action that immediately follows is fast and bloody. For me, it should never be drawn out, so I spend only about two pages at most describing the fight. Most of the time, I do it in one page. I do a shortened version for one simple reason. Having a longer, drawn out version would be boring. Fights don’t (or shouldn’t) take a chapter unless you’re doing a siege. If it’s the final showdown between good and evil, get nasty and get it done!
Step two involves the action itself. The narrative should be full of verbs! They are your friends! So I would use words like cut, slice, hack, slash, whirl (or whirl around), bob, weave, slide, twist, chop, and so on to give a rather graphic image to the reader. I would keep the sentences rather short to give the impression of speed of movement. No run on passages, no long or overly expository speeches, just short and choppy sentences.
Similarly, when you’re doing the reaction (such as getting hit or punched or cut) then some adjectives (i.e. bloody) can and should be employed. If you’re hacking away at someone with a sword, you’re going to eventually cut them, the blood should flow, and the pain should be seen in their eyes. So use a few adjectives to enhance things. Make it real! Be descriptive!
In essence, you’re writing a movie script into a book and that’s exactly how I think of my novels, reading like movies, if that makes any sense. Another novel of mine, Catnip, was given a solid rating and the person who critiqued it said it read just like a movie. That was the impression I wanted to give.
Step three is the aftermath. Here is where you can give some more detail, but not a lot. Remember, your character has just been through a death-defying incident. So has your reader! The character will not stop to recite Shakespeare’s soliloquys. They will gasp, pant, wheeze, or slump down on one knee, and shouldn’t do anything more than to toss off a one-liner or two.
This is just my take on the whole thing, and like all writers out there, I am constantly searching for the perfect line, the perfect plot, and the perfect way of narrating the whole thing. I think that I always will. But that’s what writers should do in order to improve. Never be complacent. Thank you for allowing me the time to post this, Dominique. I greatly appreciate it.”
The Tower is his first novel, published by UntreedReads.com. His other novels, all for the YA set, include Twisted, Lindsay Versus the Marauders and it's sequel, Lindsay, Jo, and the Tree of Forever, all three courtesy of Regal Crest Enterprises. He has also written Death Bytes and Catnip, courtesy of DevineDestinies.com.
For more information about J.S. Frankel
Saturday, February 7, 2015
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